Dateline

The Sentinel told readers a week ago that Condoleezza Rice urged Turkey to show restraint in responding to attacks from Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. The article began, "ISTANBUL, Turkey." Right below it was a report that Rice said the Russian government had amassed so much central authority that it may undermine its commitment to democracy. That article began, "MOSCOW." So where was the United States secretary of state -- Istanbul or Moscow? While pondering that puzzle, I remembered a call I received not long ago from a reader who identified himself as Richie.

The story of Oscar Pistorius will receive heavy attention Friday in prime time. Both "Dateline NBC" and ABC's "20/20" will focus on the South African track star known as the Blade Runner. He is charged with murdering girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. "Dateline," starting at 8, says that Keith Morrison will report "new and exclusive details" and explore the private lives of Pistorius and Steenkamp. The two-hour "Dateline" also takes up the latest in the Jodi Arias murder case. Josh Mankiewicz is the reporter.

Paul Tsongas talks with Jane Pauley tonight about his health, politics and the future on Dateline NBC, which airs at 10 p.m. on WESH-Channel 2.The former Democratic presidential candidate has been battling a recurrence of cancer for the past year.

Ann Curry said a tearful goodbye Thursday, and Savannah Guthrie was sitting in her seat Friday on "Today. " On Friday afternoon, NBC confirmed that Guthrie will be the new co-anchor on the NBC show. Her official debut will be Monday, July 9, and she will continue as chief legal correspondent for NBC. She joined "Today" last June as co-host of the program's third hour. She had served as NBC News White House correspondent from December 2008 to June 2011. Steve Capus, president of NBC News, released this statement: "In just a few short years Savannah, has become a standout member of the news division as well as the ultimate team player.

NBC's Dateline is dedicating an hour Monday to the killing of Kayla McKean in Lake County.The 6-year-old's father, Richard Adams, confessed to the slaying days after residents in Clermont launched a massive search.The mishandling of her case by child-abuse investigators sparked firings and a flood of children suddenly thrust into foster care. The show airs at 10 p.m. on WESH-Channel 2.

IS IT necessary for Sentinel reporters to dateline their stories about crimes in Seminole County with ''Sanford?'' When scanning the Local & State section of the paper, if the reader glances at the headline and dateline (the city given at the beginning of the story), and does not bother to carefully read the rest of the article, he or she may be led to believe that most crimes are committed in Sanford.Sanford is proud to be the Seminole County seat. The Seminole County Courthouse and the Seminole County Jail are both in Sanford.

After serving a heavy diet of Diana, Diana and more Diana last week, Dateline NBC changes pace tonight with an excellent hour about problems the disabled face in employment and housing.Networks such as NBC scored big ratings for scrutinizing the British royals and giving the public what it supposedly wants. Yet the Dateline hour tonight is the NBC newsmagazine at its best, explaining a widespread problem and pushing the public to think about it.Oh, for some Diana-size ratings tonight. The program airs at 10 on WESH-Channel 2.Dateline too often traffics in fluff, resorts to gimmicks and pulls on celebrities.

Unless you've been punched in the stomach before, real hard and without warning, it's difficult to understand the sensation.One thing is for sure, it's no fun.That's how some in my business must have felt the other night while watching Dateline NBC. I don't usually tune to that program, but wanted to see how they handled the General Motors lawsuit that claimed the company had been defamed by a Dateline report.The background is this: Dateline did a story about a certain model of 1973-1987 GM pickup truck that allegedly has its gas tank in a dangerous spot.

Stone Phillips makes an excellent host for NBC's Dateline, but is he as "straight arrow" as he seems?Pretty much. The son of a Texas engineer, Phillips played quarterback at Yale, where he graduated cum laude before landing a job with a TV station in Atlanta. Moving swiftly up the ranks, he became an ABC correspondent in the Middle East, Far East and South America, which led to a stint as a reporter for 20/20. Six years ago, at age 37, he switched networks to co-anchor Dateline, now the nation's top-rated newsmagazine show.

When Marie and I bought the Corbin place 24 years ago this month, the old gentleman who owned it wept tears of parting. Now I know how he felt. My first Scrabble dateline was in November of 1966. This is my last.Many readers were skeptical about that dateline. They figured Scrabble was something I had made up, like Camelot or Yoknapatawpha County. A lawyer for the popular word game wrote me a hoity-toity letter; he was going to sue if I didn't knock it off. I wrote back that Scrabble had been on the map for a hundred years before anyone thought of landing an ''X'' on a triple-word.

NBC used sports action, newsmagazine "Dateline" and special repeats of ' 'America's Got Talent' ' to earn a narrow victory among young adults over Univision on a very quiet night for the broadcasters. NBC and Univision actually claimed the night's top six broadcast programs in adults 18-49 , each earning a 1.2 rating in the demo , with the Peacock ruling outright in adults 25-54 and the Spanish-language leader alone on top in adults 18-34. CBS led comfortably in total viewers.

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO -- Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg launched the social networking company's investment roadshow Monday to snag buyers for the firm's 10.6-billion-dollar initial public offering of stock. Zuckerberg was joined by chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and chief financial officer David Ebersman in a presentation to 400 investors who packed a Manhattan hotel ballroom. The unusual aspect of Facebook's launch was highlighted by Zuckerberg's attire. The young billionaire, 28, eschewed the usual Wall Street attire of a suit and tie in favour of a dark hoodie and sneakers.

The NCAA men's basketball tournament pushed back the CBS lineup by 19 minutes Sunday night. But CBS still had the two most-watched programs in the Central Florida market. The usually popular "60 Minutes" was tops with 148,700 viewers. " CSI: Miami," the last program in the CBS prime-time lineup, was second with 139,100 viewers. Coming in at No. 3 was a "Dateline NBC " report on the Trayvon Martin tragedy in Sanford. That newsmagazine scored well above average with 133,200 viewers.

BUSHNELL — A security guard at Universal Studios, a couple from Lake County and 19 others from across the state were arrested during an undercover sex sting in which detectives posed as children online, the Sumter County Sheriff's Office announced today. Suspects from Celebration, Clermont, Kissimmee, Ocala and Jacksonville converged on this rural county an hour west of Orlando in hopes of having sex with 14-year-old boys and girls, officials said. "It was very fruitful, I hate to say," Sheriff Bill Farmer said during a news conference at his headquarters.

The Sentinel told readers a week ago that Condoleezza Rice urged Turkey to show restraint in responding to attacks from Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. The article began, "ISTANBUL, Turkey." Right below it was a report that Rice said the Russian government had amassed so much central authority that it may undermine its commitment to democracy. That article began, "MOSCOW." So where was the United States secretary of state -- Istanbul or Moscow? While pondering that puzzle, I remembered a call I received not long ago from a reader who identified himself as Richie.

Tamara Lytle, the Orlando Sentinel's Washington bureau chief, has won first place in the Society of Professional Journalists' Dateline Award for Washington Correspondence. The award was open to print reporters who cover Washington for publications nationwide. Lytle won for a body of work that included stories targeting questionable congressional-travel practices, Florida's offshore-drilling controversy and the Terri Schiavo affair. According to SPJ, "the awards represent not only the best local reporting, but also the best in the ideals of journalism."

KISSIMMEE -- Lights! Camera! Action! Actually, the scene at the county courthouse last week went more like this: Lights. Cameras. Wait a few hours. A crew from Dateline NBC spent more than six hours in the historic third-floor courtroom setting up equipment and interviewing four jurors from the Barry McDuffie manslaughter trial for an upcoming segment of the prime-time television newsmagazine. They came back again for five hours starting Friday morning to shoot the exterior of the building and collect more than a dozen trunks, a bevy of cables, an aluminum frame for lights and an abundance of other equipment.

Jane Pauley recently urged TV critics to take another look at Dateline NBC. ''Our learning curve is impressive, our quality is rising, and you may be forgiven for being a little behind the curve, because who can watch all four nights a week of Dateline?'' Pauley said.Who would want to? A week's worth of Dateline broadcasts reveals her bragging was unjustified.Dateline has consumed so many time slots partly because it's cheaper to program newsmagazines than dramas. The competition has noticed: ABC is adding a second 20/20 this fall on Thursdays, and CBS is providing two 48 Hours a week this summer.

WICHITA, Kan. -- The Kansas attorney general Tuesday sued two psychologists hired by the state to interview BTK serial killer Dennis Rader, accusing them of profiting from a videotape of a session with him. Segments of the interview were broadcast by Dateline NBC in August, five days before Rader was given consecutive life sentences for 10 killings from 1974 to 1991. "It is unthinkable that anyone would attempt to profit off of the victims of these heinous acts," Attorney General Phill Kline said.

Regarding Sunday's article "G-7 nations rally to fight oil cost": Big deal! Their idea of "fight" is to gather at great expense and comfort and "urge producers to increase energy supplies" and "urge consumers to conserve more." Gee! Why didn't we think of that sooner? How will OPEC survive in the face of this ferocious onslaught? More worthy of the top of page A3 might be: Dateline -- Tomorrow: "The newly formed OPCC, Organization of Petroleum CONSUMING Countries, met yesterday and resolved the top price they will pay for oil will be $24 per barrel until hell freezes over."